The present invention relates to a wane detector and particularly to such a detector for measuring the forward and rearward wanes on a cant and the acceptable wood portion therebetween.
The wane of a plank or cant is the rounded or non-squared edge resulting when such plank or cant is sawn from a round log. The wane is removed, within certain tolerance restrictions, before the plank or cant is further processed into dimensioned lumber. Of course, the wane can be sawn from the cant after visual inspection or measurement by operating personnel, but this can be unnecessarily time consuming. Merely trimming all cants within certain dimensions to remove all wane areas would be wasteful and uneconomic.
Automatic wane detectors as heretofore proposed have been relatively expensive and require sufficient space for mounting light sources or radiation sources at remote or separated points in order to cast a shadow on the respective wanes and measure the acceptable width area therebetween. Not only are some of these detectors inclined to be expensive and cumbersome, but they can also be subject to inaccuracies due to the diverse location and possible relative movement of detecting elements.